The development paradigm that has dominated thinking and policy on the political and economic trajectory of ‘Third World’ countries since the end of the Second World War is drawing to a close.

Even key players such as the World Bank and IMF now recognise the weaknesses in the ‘one-size-fits all’ structural adjustment programmes that have been enforced throughout the global South (and more recently also in Greece). For large swathes of the human population, the last quarter century has seen economic stagnation, with a growing gulf in wealth between the rich and the poor.

However, the critique of this kind of ‘development’ goes far beyond its failure in purely economic terms. A deeper critique points to the conceptual and cultural impoverishment entailed in defining wealth in purely monetary terms, and the resulting steamrollering of regionally distinctive cultural, economic and political forms of organisation. All of these, together with much of the planet’s ecological wealth, have been sacrificed at the altar of an economic growth model that has served primarily the 1%.

We are, however, living through a period of profound innovation and transition. In the words of environmentalist and author Paul Hawkins, the explosion of ecologically informed, community-centred activism that we are witnessing worldwide represents the ‘earth’s immune system kicking in’!

From Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, to buen vivir in the Andean region of South America, from Ubuntu in southern Africa to Swaraj in India, and beyond, we are seeing multiple experiments in redefining and reorienting the process by which peoples define and realise wealth. These movements are not limited to the global South. Also – perhaps especially! – in the global North, there is a growing recognition (manifested in such movements as degrowth, commons, Transition Towns, steady-state economics and permaculture) of the need to transition to a post-materialist, post-developmental paradigm.

All of these various approaches, North and South, are rooted in a validation of cultural and ecological integrity, making of these the very foundations on which planning and policy, values and norms are built. In place of the economic and cultural monoculture that has prevailed this last half-century, what we are seeing emerging is, in the words of the Zapatistas, ‘A world in which many worlds can fit’.

And yet, the transition is still in its infancy and remains fragile. How do economies whose role in the global economy is predicated upon the export of raw materials make the transition beyond ‘extractivism’? How can the legitimate desire for indigenous people to have their ancestral lands protected from exploitation be reconciled with the requirement by governments to raise funds for schools, hospitals and rural electrification? How to catalyse the revolution in consciousness and values required to enable us to transition away from consumerism? And what are the complementarities and perhaps also potential conflicts between the various movements, North and South. How can we optimise the synergies between these different players and accelerate the transition to a richer and more diverse global ecological civilisation?

In this three-week programme we will explore both conceptually and experientially, with support from a large and diverse team of teachers and mentors:

Evolution of different theories of development

Critiques of development theory and practice

The emergence of post-development and more pluriversal models and concepts

The contribution of indigenous wisdom traditions to the mix; sumak kawsai/buen vivir

The challenges of operationalising buen vivir; the political economy of transitioning beyond extractivism

Cross-overs/complementarities between buen vivir and other movements/concepts future pathways to alternatives to development

We will be drawing not just from economic theory and practice but also from the fields of anthropology and ecology. These disciplines are a great place to start in the search for a language fit for the purposes of the 21st century. Both reveal a mosaic of diverse, elegant and creative adaptations to the specificity of place; a global heterodoxy of beautiful solutions to the challenge of living well on a diverse and finite planet.

The concepts that lie at the heart of these disciplines – such as resilience, adaptability, symbiosis, the power of networks and so on – open up whole new ways of understanding and generating reciprocal wealth and wellbeing within the biophysical boundaries of the planet.

The course will seek to educate the whole person, and will draw on multiple ways of learning including small group design work and techniques drawn from Agosto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php?useFlash=0, as well as more conventional, conceptual approaches to the subject.

This course is an elective on our postgraduate programme. It is open to external participants who would like to deeply explore this subject material and can join us for the whole three-week programme.

Teachers

David Bollier

David Bollier is an author, activist and independent scholar of the commons. He is Co-Founder of the Commons Strategies Group and the author of ten books, including Viral Spiral, Brand Name Bullies and Silent Theft. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts and blogs at http://Bollier.org(link is external).

Dr Karambu Ringera

Dr Karambu Ringera is the founder and president of International Peace Initiatives (IPI: www.ipeacei.org), an organisation that works to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS, poverty and violence in the lives of women and children. She has used her extensive academic background and international experience working in many countries to design and implement models of effective community engagement, women’s grassroots empowerment programs, sustainable peace and development, collaborative problem solving models, pre-emptive and post conflict reconciliation, proactive health campaigns, and a successful, working model of “Amani Homes” - community homes of peace for orphans and vulnerable children. Karambu is a visionary, an activist, a compassionate, committed, formidable force for change, and an inspiration to all who meet her.

Maria Luisa Eschenhagen

Maria Luisa Eschenhagen has worked for twenty years as a research professor in various universities and faculties across Colombia, and for the last six years at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín. Her main research interests lie in the field of environmental studies: environmental thought, environmental education, development and environment, and ecological politics. Her two main research areas environmental education in universities and alternatives to the development paradigm. She is deeply concerned with epistemological and ontological dimensions of the transition to sustainable societies and in alternative cosmovisions, including Sumak Kawsay and Buddhism. (www.pensamientoambiental.de)

Jonathan Dawson

Jonathan Dawson is a sustainability educator, currently working as Head of Economics at Schumacher College in Devon. Until recently a long-term resident at the Findhorn ecovillage and a former President of the Global Ecovillage Network, he has around 20 years experience as a researcher, author, consultant and project manager in the field of small enterprise development in Africa and South Asia. Jonathan is the principal author of the Gaia Education sustainable economy curriculum www.gaiaeducation.org, drawn from best practice within ecovillages worldwide, that has been endorsed by UNITAR and adopted by UNESCO as a valuable contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. He teaches this curriculum at universities, ecovillages and community centres in Brazil, Spain and Scotland. He has also adopted the curriculum to virtual format and teaches it through the Open University of Catalunya in Barcelona.

Stephan Harding

Stephan Harding is Programme Coordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science and resident Ecologist at Schumacher College teaching on the MSc core modules and on most short courses at the College. He holds a doctorate in behavioural ecology from Oxford University, and before coming to the college taught ecology at the National University in Costa Rica. He is a close associate of James Lovelock and an expert in the study of Gaia theory and deep ecology. He is the author of Animate Earth and Grow Small, Think Beautiful: Ideas for a Sustainable World from Schumacher College.

Paula Andreevitch

Paula Andreevitch is a facilitator of Theatre of the Oppressed as developed by the Brazilian dramatist and activist, Agosto Boal. She worked with an actor/lawyer who used theatre as a tool for social rehabilitation in prisons across Mexico. For the hundreds of inmates, engaging in theatre became a space in which possibilities could be created. She has also worked with theatre as a tool for social transformation in India, Brazil and the UK. Paula is also a teacher of yoga.

Robin de Carteret

Robin de Carteret is an educator, facilitator and consultant in participative education, complexity science and sustainability. He specialises in using experiential activities for investigation, learning and communication. Robin has an MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College. He has worked as a sustainability educator for the last 10 years, teaches harmony singing and performance improvisation and was co-founder of Transition Leicester, applying a systems perspective to reviving local communities. He has more recently supported the Masters programmes at the College and now works freelance, acting to bring about change from a living systems view of the world. Website: www.systemsgames.org.uk

Fee:

£ 2 200.00

Course fees include all meals, field trips, materials and all teaching sessions. The programme will run from Monday of the first week to Friday afternoon the last week, and includes twenty nights private accommodation and all vegetarian meals from the first lunchtime you arrive through until the lunchtime before your departure. This course is expected to be held at The Old Postern.

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Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity(company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, United Kingdom